Creative Audigy’s “Squeal of Death” Locks Up PCs

Creative Technology Ltd.’s latest Audigy sound cards seem to be plagued by an elusive “squeal of death” that is causing random lockups in PCs using the card and the latest Windows operating systems.

The error was reproduced Friday at the company’s Singapore headquarters, as well as at Creative’s testing and support facility in the U.S. So far, Creative has neither identified a cause for the glitch nor a single unified solution to work around the problem.

The problem has been characterized as “severe,” according to representatives at Creative.

The bug seems to lurk only in the interaction between the Audigy and either the Windows 2000 or Windows XP operating systems. After several minutes of normal operation, the screen will freeze with either several shrill beeps or a prolonged screech, forcing the PC to be rebooted.

No single operation seems to cause the problem; MP3 playback will cause the error on one machine, while others have found that a certain game, not MP3s, cause the glitch. The problem has even occurred on demo software Creative has shipped with the card, according to a poster on Dell’s support site. The bug has not affected PCs running Windows ME.

“We have not been able to really isolate what is really causing the problem,” said Mala Sharma, a representative of Creative’s brand management team in Milpitas, Calif.

However, Sharma said that it appears to be a bus resource issue, such as when too many applications attempt to access the card.

Sharma said that, so far, “less than 50” calls have been received by the Oklahoma technical support facility, and possibly up to another 50 by support staff in the United Kingdom and Europe. Still, the bug has prompted hundreds of postings on Creative’s support site in the U.K. alone. An online petition asking for better support from Creative has also been created.

On Monday, Creative added the bug to its “Knowledge Base,” and advised users to update their drivers and check the card’s available resources.

Dell Computer Corp., Round Rock, Tex., has also received complaints from users who have added an after-market Audigy card to the Dimension 4100, 4300, and 8300 lines, among others. Dell currently only sells Creative’s SoundBlaster Live! line of sound cards, which has not been affected by the “squeal of death”. A Dell representative in Round Rock, Tex., said he had no knowledge of the issue.

“I think the problem would be (in) the drivers,” wrote ‘hkwk’, a poster on the Creative U.K. site, who said he had installed Windows 2000, XP and ME on his computer and found only the ME OS was free of the bug. “I tried to install the beta version on the link above, reinstalling the driver, update the BIOS, reinstalling the windows, almost everything. But the problem still exists. What I want to know is how to fix this, and how come creative lab (sic) wouldn’t notice this problem?”

Other posters have noted that the bug doesn’t seem tied to a particular microprocessor or chipset.

Creative hasn’t acknowledged the bug as a driver problem, but has come up with a laundry list of potential solutions, including: changing the card’s PCI slot; turning off the PC’s ACPI power management; using the DirectSound plugins for WinAmp, an MP3 player; reinstalling WinAmp; and, finally, getting the Audigy replaced. One user adjusted the settings of his parallel port and was able to eliminate the squealing sound and the lockups.

Some users have also taken the bizarre step of running two Creative sound cards, a SoundBlaster Live! and Audigy card, in the same system. Others have purchased and installed a 3COM 3C905C-TX network interface card, which has seemed to eliminate the squeal.

Sharma said that Steve Erickson, Creative’s vice-president in charge of consumer audio products, had been notified of the problem. “I’m sure since the vice-president has been notified, that the engineering team will have all the resources they need to solve the problem,” she said.

Of course, no solution will be timely enough for some frustrated users, who have reported problems since late November. “Oh well, the time has come to forget all Creative products for good,” wrote one. “And yes I do mean it – plenty of working sound cards out there!”

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